October 10, 2012 THE VILLADOM TIMES IV • Page 19 chances of deflecting this insult to Americans is going to take some major opposition. If I were any greener, I would be mistaken for a large counterfeit $100 bill. Hold me up to a strong light and see Abraham Lincoln close to my heart. I strongly support solar panels on modern buildings and on utility poles, but this is about the worst place for a solar field that I can imagine. The Navy should give this Ford Island Field project the axe and move the solar panel field to someplace where the panels will not impact on the 200,000 people who visit the Pacific Aviation Museum every year. The men who flew those airplanes really were heroes. One thinks of Lieutenant Commander John Waldron, “the old Sioux.” He was half Lakota and was raised primarily by his mother’s Lakota relatives. Waldron, an Annapolis graduate and experienced aviator, led his squadron, Torpedo 8, from the U.S.S. Hornet and found the Japanese fleet approaching Midway in June 1942. Waldron led his squadron in for the first attack. Every outmoded Douglas Devastator torpedo plane in Torpedo 8 was shot down. Waldron and all his men but one, Ensign George Gay, were killed. Torpedo 6, the next squadron in, was also virtually destroyed. Ensign Gay hid under a life raft in the middle of the Japanese fleet and watched as the American bombers, drawn by Waldron’s radio message, swooped down and destroyed all four Japanese aircraft carriers and saved Hawaii from invasion. Gay never became a fan of Japan, but he venerated Waldron and lauded his dead buddies as heroes betrayed. When Gay heard that Franklin Delano Roosevelt had died, he burst out laughing with joy. A lot of people who served agreed with him. Turning Ford Island Field into Lego-Land with parts made in China would not have appealed to the Americans who felt betrayed by the Pearl Harbor attack. Pearl Harbor is not the only historic site at risk. The new federal budget calls for a reduction of 8.3 percent -- $183 million -- to be taken out of the operation of the National Parks. This is perhaps as dumb as it gets. Not only do the National Parks encourage Americans to love and appreciate America, but they also encourage foreign tourists to come here and spend their money here. As the country’s manufacturing base dwindles, we are going to need those tourist dollars. Here is a suggestion: Everybody who has any spare money should join at least one historic preservation group to the extent of wielding the pen over the checkbook while waving the flag. Civil War battlefields are very much at risk. The National Parks system was founded in the aftermath of concern for the proper burial of the soldiers who died in the Civil War. Most soldiers before then had been buried where they fell. Officers were sometimes sent to West Point or the family cemetery. But the casualties of 186165 were so enormous that a national effort was needed to give those who could be found a proper burial. The work goes on today as the places where they fought and died are protected by the Civil War Trust, which purchases section of battlefields that might otherwise be developed and which sometimes contain unmarked graves. The Civil War Trust also publishes “Hallowed Ground,” which keeps members up to date on what the successes and the needs of the group are. The Custer Battlefield Historical & Museum Association also promotes and protects that most famous of American battlefields, the Little Bighorn. Not at all hostile to Indians -- the Indians sometimes come out for gettogethers and reenacted battles -- the group includes a number of serious scholars and keeps members abreast of anything related to Custer. This battlefield also needs protection. The Pacific Aviation Museum, now engaged in preventing Ford Island Field from turning into a giant solar panel, is another worthwhile group and maintains an impressive collection of World War II aircraft and memorabilia. We need to preserve the sites, including Antietam and Gettysburg, so new generations are inspired to try to find out what really happened and not buy into misleading hack newspaper stories and political sound bites. Every American should work to save at least one park. Perhaps together we can save America. Remember Pear Harbor? Cherish that memory. The U.S. Navy is considering a proposal to turn Ford Island Field into a 4,000-foot field of 60,000 solar panels so the Navy can provide 50 percent of its own electricity by 2020. I will never forget my first interview with Pearl Harbor veterans. I was one of the few young reporters who was a U.S. veteran. I tucked my Japanese wife’s photograph deep into my pocket and parked my Toyota three blocks away behind a thick hedge as I approached the Pearl Harbor Reunion picnic in Mahwah. I expected to hear the worst, but what I heard was literally life-changing. The men at the picnic, who were in their late fifties or early sixties, were mostly survivors of the same U.S. Army anti-aircraft battery based in Hawaii. Most of them had been drafted from the five boroughs of New York and had moved to Bergen County after the war. They were largely second-generation Americans -- mostly Irish or German, with a couple of Italians and a Greek. They loved America and thought America was the greatest country on Earth. They also told me that Pearl Harbor was a setup and that they and their buddies who died were victims of an American plot. Remember: These were flag-waving U.S. combat veterans, not pacifists or political extremists. “Everybody knew there was gonna be a war,” one guy told me. “What else were we there for -- the climate?” “They wanted it to happen,” another man said. “In out battery, they had the ammunition boxes locked. When the (Japanese) started to fly over, one of the officers had to run to his quarters for his .45 and shot the lock off the ammo box so we could load the guns.” “They set us up,” the leader said. He did not refer to the Japanese. A few days later, I read an article in a different paper, and all the same guys could talk about was how surprised they were. I was surprised this morning when I read that the Navy has decided to turn Ford Island Field into a giant solar energy system. On the heartening side, those who remember the veterans refused to roll over and play dead. “We totally agree with being green, but we don’t think they should do it where Americans spilled their red blood,” said Ken DeHoff, director of the Pacific Aviation Museum, which is located near the same field. “There’s plenty of room for them to create their project off to the west, which is just scrub oak and abandoned land.” Another spokesperson compared the predictable appearance of Ford Island Field, abandoned by the Navy in 1999, to an enormous bunch of Legos. Nobody in the preservationist community thought this was a good idea, and some of them -- all of them patriotic, many of them long-term veterans of whom we can be proud -- found it infuriating and disrespectful. But the solar panels for the project, estimated at $50 million, are made in an Asian country that is definitely not Japan or South Korea, and considering the leanings of the U.S. State Department, the Saving America one park at a time Letters to the Editor Dear Editor: On Nov. 6, we will be voting in what will be the most important election of our time. I urge everyone to vote regardless of their party affiliation; however, if you are voting for a non-partisan slate that does not run under any banner, I urge you to select who you think is the best person for the job. That is why I am supporting Mayor Bill Laforet. In the very short time he has been in office, Mayor Laforet has accomplished some very positive things for the Mahwah taxpayers. He has been successful in obtaining a Triple A rating from Moody’s for the township. This amounted to a savings of $500,000 on the term of Support for Mayor Laforet our debt. Additionally, coming in under the state’s required two percent cap for our budget was no easy task. In these economic times, a mayor from any town in New Jersey must make difficult decisions, and sometimes that upsets the status quo. Mayor Laforet understands this and has tried to save the taxpayers money by taking a compassionate approach in minimizing the effects on township employees. His main interest and focus are the taxpayers of Mahwah and, being a business man, he is oblivious to political posturing. John D’Angelo Mahwah Crossroads decision (continued from page 9) the developer’s plan called for donating an athletic field to the township as part of this project. Kates asserts that this donation created a conflict of interest. Kates also pointed out that DaPuzzo is a founding member of the Mahwah Schools Foundation, has continuously served as an MSF trustee for approximately 12 years, and was aware that Crossroads Developers, LLC contributed $5,000 per year to the foundation from 2000 through 2010. He claimed that a member of the public could reasonably infer that DaPuzzo’s vote was influenced by the donations made by Crossroads to the MSF. Jaworski argued that a reasonable person could not conclude that DaPuzzo’s judgment and opinion were impaired by his wife’s employment by the township. He explained that the standard for a conflict of interest in common law and in the local government ethics law is that there be a direct or indirect financial interest. He said that, while DaPuzzo’s wife is the township recreation director, she is a part time employee and does not report to the council to which her husband was elected. He also said she had no role in the adoption of the rezoning ordinance and did not know it contained any recreation features when the ordinance was introduced. Jaworski claimed that the township’s attorney at the time of the rezoning vote found there was no conflict, and he argued if the court found that DaPuzzo had a conflict of interest in this matter it would have a “chilling effect” on other people who might want to serve on charitable boards. Jaworski also argued that the donations made by his client to the MSF did not impair DaPuzzo’s objectivity because the fact that DaPuzzo was a trustee had nothing to do with the donations which he claimed were made primarily to get the Crossroads name placed on banners and T-shirts for the Mahwah Run. He also claimed that everyone on the foundation knew about the Crossroads donations, and the foundation was not a proponent of the rezoning ordinance. On the ordinance to repeal the rezoning, Jaworski argued that the township council did not adhere to the required timeline to adopt the repealing ordinance because it acted before it received the written report from the planning board concerning the ordinance’s compliance with the master plan and that was arbitrary, capricious, and unreasonable.